1 mb or 2mb Processor Cache

JTER

Hi guys, just wondering if any of yous can help me. Looking to buy a laptop for just general needs, internet, music and the likes.

Only question I have is about the memory cache on the processors. How much does this affect the performance?. Im looking at some of the dual core setups and the difference between a 1mb and a 2mb is around a hundred euro , with a slightly more powerful processor as well.

Is it worth the extra money, will i notice an increase in performance for such basic needs?

Thanks in advance

zilog_jones

1MB extra L2 cache is not worth €100 alone, there must be some other significant difference. What are the specs?

Tom Dunne

JTER wrote: »

Is it worth the extra money, will i notice an increase in performance for such basic needs?

Most certainly not.

Cache is temporary storage area that sits between the main memory and the CPU. The larger the cache, the less the CPU has to go to main memory, the faster it performs.

However, in your situation, you will most likely not notice the effect of extra cache.

JTER

Thanks a lot guys

These were the two processors that I was looking at with the Dell Inspiron 1545

Intel® Celeron Dual Core T3000 (1.80 GHz, 800 MHz FSB, 1 MB L2 Cache)

Intel® Core™ 2 Duo Processor T6500 (2.1GHz, 800MHz, 2MB)

zilog_jones

Between those two, the difference in clock speed and L2 cache combined would probably be noticeable, though by how much I'm not sure.

Both processors are based on the same architecture (Penryn-3M) but some features are dropped on the Celeron such as SSE4.1 support (some newer software may run a bit faster if this is available), and Intel VT which improves performance of virtualisation software (VMware, VirtualBox, MS Virtual PC, etc.). Unless the latter is important to you or you will be doing processor intensive stuff (e.g. games, video editing or encoding) on a regular basis I'd find it hard to justify the extra €100.

Also, the Inspiron 1545 doesn't look great TBH - http://www.pcpro.co.uk/labs/250479/dell-inspiron-1545.html?searchString=inspiron+1545

Voodu Child

Aye, there is a reasonable difference between the two on account of the L2 cache (1Mb is very low for a dual-core), and ~20% higher clockspeed. But it is not something that the average user would notice for the stuff you'll be doing. It's certainly not worth €100, that money would be better spent on a fast hard-drive, which will give noticeable gains over the slow one I presume Dell uses.

Overheal

the L2 Cache is pretty important, but wether or not you would notice the improvement is open for debate. There might be some comparison benchmarks online somewhere that could explain how much of a performance boost it offers. But yeah, I question how worth 100 squid it is.